Our Desk | Again, diversify the economy

Julie Zhu

Recently, the Premier of China, Li Keqiang visited Macau for a three-day inspection tour. The Premier said that Macau, despite facing the world’s slow recovery from the economic crisis and also its own industrial structural challenges, still manages to keep fiscal surplus, high employment rates, better livelihood and a peaceful society.
The Premier of China has said that the central government is confident that the outlook for Macau will continue to be bright. Before leaving Macau, Li said that Macau would play an ever more important role in connecting China and the Portuguese-speaking countries. This would also assist with the diversification of the local economy, as he said.
Needless to say that it never matters what Li says, but the topic of diversification of the economy, again, attracted my attention.
It has become a cliché to say Macau should diversify its economy in order to try to get rid of the image of a gambling city, where casinos are the main attraction, and evolve to become a celebrated world tourism center capable of offering tourists more than just entries to gambling spots.
Indeed, turning Macau into a tourism center will bring a series of benefits to the economy, leaving it less dependent on casino revenues, and making the economic environment in the territory stronger against external market fluctuations, which are around the corner in the current global scenario.
Casinos are important, as it is everything else that keeps the engines running in the city. The main goal is to minimize the consequences of an engine fail.
The future of any society lies with its youth. Young people promote change and they represent a responsible sustainability of the social system, which can protect the elderly, the newest generations, even themselves. In short, young people are in charge of renewing society. Therefore, it is important to keep them around.
According to a few reputable rankings released this year, the University of Macau has some of the highest rates of international students in the world, which indicates that students worldwide are curious not only about the school but also about the territory, and that in itself is a very positive aspect in a city that has created a multi-cultural stable society in the past years. However, more important than welcoming all the brains that populate the city, it is to keep them in order to make contributions of all kinds to Macau, regardless of whether they are scientific or artistic contributions.
I believe that the strength of a society can be measured through its education. Macau, like the rest of the world, needs as many engineers and doctors as it needs artists and teachers.
If Macau wants all these young people to feel interested in the city after finishing their studies, then the city needs to come up with solid opportunities for their careers.
Diversifying the economy shouldn’t just have tourists in mind, but also the people who the territory is training in its education institutions. Training intelligent and valuable people who then leave the territory in pursuit of good jobs is a waste of resources for the territory. It is the equivalent to let go of the most precious and reliable valuables in our possession.
So, the first step should consist of bringing more investment to the city, and then develop an industry beyond the tourism-based perspective. Julie Zhu